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Updated: June 8, 2025
If a quartette were assembled, and many times the musical party was enlarged to a quintette or a septette, an adjournment was necessary to a room less crowded, but equally sparse of conventional furniture. Mr. Mickley was always happy to join in these impromptu musical assemblies, when occasion offered, although performing music was one of the few things which he never succeeded in doing well.
He could not deny the likeness, but seemed reluctant to entertain the subject at all." During these years of study and research Mr. Mickley must not be thought of as a strict specialist. Side by side with his fascinating collection of coins there was an ever-growing library, the extent and value of which were never appreciated until his death.
Mickley was in no sense of the word a politician, but he voted pretty regularly. An incident connected with his last visit to the polls was amusing. Having been three years absent, a patriotic Hibernian, who kept the window-book and knew nothing of him, demanded to see his tax-receipt. The old gentleman went quietly home and brought back the desired document.
The private secretary of the ambassador from Holland, who was appealed to, asserted beforehand that he "could read anything that ever was written in Dutch." Yet, after a long inspection, he frankly owned his inability to decipher a single word of it. Mr. Mickley was determined to ascertain the contents.
The late Joseph J. Mickley comprised qualities at once more attractive and more unusual than are often met with in one person. He was distinguished throughout the world, during more than a generation, for the diligence and success of his numismatic researches, and his collection of rare coins was for a long time the most valuable in this country.
Yet from that day until the present the secret has been as securely kept as that of the rifling of Lord Byron's letter from a vase at Abbotsford, or of the Duchess of Devonshire's portrait from the London Art-Gallery. In fact, the same mild generosity which had always characterized Mr. Mickley still came uppermost in the face of this trying disaster.
Ole Bull, who happened to be in town at the time, hearing of the circumstance, hastened to the shop for the purpose of examining and playing upon the historic instrument. Mickley also became an authority in regard to the value and authenticity of these instruments, although he never indulged in the passion of making collections in this field.
There were city directories of several editions for ninety-three years. The black-letter list was quite large, and there were more than thirty editions of the Bible, some of great rarity, and nearly all in a fine state of preservation. From the time of the coin-robbery the older acquaintances of Mr. Mickley noticed a decided change in him.
Emerson never condensed his rare thoughts into smaller compass, not even in his "English Traits," than Mr, Mickley has condensed his facts and observations. There is a small pamphlet extant, the manuscript of which was read by him in 1863 on the occasion of the centennial anniversary of a noted Indian massacre in Northampton County, Pennsylvania, where several of his ancestors perished.
And at the close of it all there could be no happier eulogy than the one modestly yet comprehensively delivered by his old and congenial friend William E. Dubois, himself since summoned to take the same mysterious journey. "In fine," says he, "Mr. Mickley seemed superior to any meanness; free from vulgar passions and habits, from pride and vanity, from evil speaking and harsh judging.
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